


The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster

by canadasuperhero, heartequals (savvygambols)



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Audio Format: MP3, Boating, Community: pod_together, Future Fic, Gen, M/M, Monster of the Week, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 45-60 Minutes, Pre-Slash, Scotland, Supernatural Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-06-29 09:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadasuperhero/pseuds/canadasuperhero, https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvygambols/pseuds/heartequals
Summary: "This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we’re exploring the mystery, the myth, the legend--""One might say the icon.""Sure, icon. The legend of the Loch Ness Monster."Ryan and Shane are on the hunt for the Loch Ness Monster.





	The Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster

**Author's Note:**

> heartequals: Everything I know about the Loch Ness Monster comes from Wikipedia, a couple of BBC articles, a conspiracy theorist Wikia, and books on cryptozoology I read when I was in elementary school. The song quoted in the final section is "What Grace Means" by Buck 65. Thank you to canadasuperhero for being a great podficcer, a great beta, and a great friend.

****

**Buzzfeed Unsolved:  
THE MYSTERY OF THE LOCH NESS MONSTER**

[Download here: MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2019/The%20Mystery%20of%20The%20Loch%20Ness%20Monster.mp3)

* * *

[Ryan and Shane sit at their table. Shane has a plastic dinosaur and he’s tossing it from hand-to-hand.]

  
Ryan:  
This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we’re exploring the mystery, the myth, the legend--

  
Shane:  
One might say the icon.

  
Ryan:  
(wheezing)  
Sure, icon.  
The legend of the Loch Ness Monster.  
It’s our Season 20 finale of Supernatural--

  
Shane:  
I keep forgetting it’s Season 20 of Supernatural.  
Jesus, we’ve been doing this for years.

  
Ryan:  
Yeah and you loved every minute of it.

  
Shane:  
Oh, that’s the real unsolved mystery.

  
Ryan:  
Uh huh.  
Let’s get into it.  
The Loch Ness Monster, or, as she is more affectionately known--

  
Shane:  
_affectionately?!_

  
Ryan:  
\--Nessie.  
Shut the fuck up, Shane.  
You think it’s cute, don’t lie.

  
Shane:  
No, I don’t think the Loch Ness Monster is cute--

  
Ryan:  
I’m not saying you think the Loch Ness Monster is cute!

  
Shane:  
\--do _you_ think the Loch Ness Monster is cute?!

  
Ryan:  
I think we can agree that the nickname “Nessie” is cute.  
It’s a name you’d give to a small fluffy dog who runs around after baths all manic and whatever.  
Like one of those, fuckin’, small dogs, I don’t know.  
Like a Papillon.  
Nessie the Papillon.

  
Shane:  
(wheezes)  
What the fuck are you talking about?

  
Ryan:  
The Loch Ness Monster, asshole!

  
Shane:  
(more laughter)

.::.

It is going to be a terrible episode, Ryan figures out halfway through their second take in front of the small boathouse, because both he _and_ Shane are too damn excited to focus on anything. Shane is trying to play it cool, but it’s hard to play it cool when they’re on location. It sucks that their brand is “serious ghosthunters” and that Shane has to even pretend to be cool about stuff like this. It’s a little overcast but the water is calm and oh right, they’re in Scotland looking for the fucking Loch Ness Monster. Ryan is practically vibrating with excitement.

“Dinosaurs went extinct over 60 million years ago,” Shane tries to argue, half-heartedly, for about the fifth time since they started shooting the episode back in L.A.

Ryan levels him with a grin. “So you’re saying that the space-time anomaly theory is plausible.”

TJ turns his camera off and says, “I’m fucking giving up on you two. Stay here until I find the woman who is taking us out on the lake.” He stalks off, muttering about how despite twenty seasons of Supernatural, they’re unable to keep their shit together around each other when they’re having fun. Ryan can’t blame him but it’s hard to stay serious when they’re on location and their lives aren’t at stake.

So Ryan grins wider at Shane. “Yeah? Space-time anomaly?”

Shane says, uncharacteristically flustered in a way that delights Ryan, “No? No! Fuck you. There’s no proof that a space-time anomaly exists on this planet and if there was, I don’t think a dinosaur would be able to manipulate it in order to end up in Scotland. If you were a dinosaur, wouldn’t you want to go somewhere warmer?”

“Not if I was a plesiosaur. Scotland would be my home if I was a plesiosaur. Why would I want to leave my home if I was a plesiosaur?”

“Please stop saying plesiosaur,” said Shane.

“Plesiosaur,” says Ryan cheerfully. Shane looks like he might punch him. Ryan revels in it and doesn’t bother trying to figure out why. He doesn’t examine his feelings too closely around Shane because he does actually like some mysteries to be unsolved. They’ve never found proof of that supernatural creatures exist and Ryan finds comfort, too, in the untracked parts of his relationship with Shane.

.::.

  
Ryan:  
The Loch Ness Monster is a supernatural creature who is believed to live in a lake, or Loch Ness, in the Scottish Highlands.  
Nessie has been seen throughout history.  
The first recorded sighting of her was in the sixth century by a Irish monk, Saint Columba, who reportedly found her in the River Ness, and made the sign of the cross to ward her away from attacking one of his followers.

[Shane stops throwing his plastic dinosaur around so he can look at Ryan with a little interest and a lot of disdain.]

  
Shane:  
Are you saying the Loch Ness Monster is not Christian?  
This guy, Columbo, just made the sign of the cross and she disappeared?

  
Ryan:  
Why the fuck would Nessie be a Christian?!  
She’s a monster, she doesn’t have a religion.

  
Shane:  
You just said that Saint Columbo made the sign of the cross and she didn’t attack his followers.

  
Ryan:  
Saint _Columbo?_

  
Shane:  
I don’t know!

  
Ryan;  
First of all, it’s Saint Columba, show some respect.  
Second of all, this was in the time when saints walked the Earth so--

  
Shane:  
Saints did _what?!_  
Ryan, they were monks!

Ryan:  
(giggling)  
I don’t know!  
Things were different back then!

[TJ, off screen and behind the camera: “For fuck’s sake, guys, get on with it.”]

  
Ryan:  
I’m just saying, things were different when there were saints.

  
Shane:  
I’m not Christian but I’m pretty sure they still canonize people.

  
Ryan:  
You know what I mean!

  
Shane:  
I really don’t!

[TJ: “GUYS. COME ON.”]

  
Ryan:  
Nessie wasn’t seen again until the 19th century.  
In 1871, a man reported seeing something in the water that was “wriggling and churning” before it disappeared under the waves.

  
Shane:  
Was this in the river or the loch?

  
Ryan:  
The lake.

  
Shane:  
Why was Nessie suddenly in the lake?

  
Ryan:  
Suddenly?  
Shane, this was thirteen centuries later!

  
Shane:  
How did she get to the lake?

  
Ryan:  
She can swim!  
Are you even paying attention?  
Wait, have you not heard of the Loch Ness Monster before?

  
Shane:  
Of course I have!  
But how did she get to the lake?

  
Ryan:  
She swam, Jesus Christ, Shane!  
She had thirteen centuries to get from the river to the lake.  
And the river is only like, 6 miles from the lake so she probably got there pretty quickly.

  
Shane:  
(wheezing)

.::.

Their guide comes out of the boathouse, TJ at her side. She’s a tall Scottish woman, solid and severe-looking under a wide-brimmed hat, gray hair pulled together in a low pony-tail. Her skin is weathered from decades spent ferrying dumbasses like Ryan and Shane around the lake. When Buzzfeed lawyers sent her a non-disclosure agreement a month ago, she returned it waterlogged and signed in purple. When she first set eyes on Ryan and Shane, she burst out laughing. Her name is Isla and Ryan wants her to adopt him.

“All right,” she says gruffly, tossing orange life-jackets at Ryan and Shane and TJ. “Put these on and we’ll go.”

TJ puts on his life-jacket, camera off and ignoring them, which gives Ryan a chance sidle up to Shane, intimate in a way he can’t be in front of the cameras, and whisper “plesiosaur”.

“Don’t think I won’t throw you in the lake and let Nessie eat you,” Shane says, shoving him away.

“Oh, Nessie is a vegetarian,” says Isla.

Ryan turns to her, mouth open. “You’ve seen her?”

TJ fumbles for his camera because Isla, who doesn’t seem prone to whimsy, has a way of speaking where her word seems as good as evidence but it’s too late because Isla is turning away, walking toward the dock. “Don’t worry,” she says over her shoulder, “you’ll be fine.”

They hurry to catch up with her. She helps them into her boat as if they’re small, particularly stupid children, and says, “if you get seasick, just lean over and throw up in the lake. Don’t throw up in my boat.”

.::.

  
Ryan:  
Are you fucking with me?  
You’re fucking with me.  
How is this still an argument?  
Jesus, someone ate their wheaties this morning.  
_Anyway_ \--

[Shane starts tossing his plastic dinosaur from hand to hand with a huge smile on his face. Ryan looks like he wants to smile and/or punch Shane.]

  
Ryan:  
\--Nessie wasn’t seen again until the late 1800s and even then that sighting went unreported for decades until a sudden influx of sightings in the lake stirred public interest.  
In the 1930s, several people reported seeing Nessie but these were later revealed to be hoaxes or people mistaking otters or logs for the Loch Ness Monster.  
The sightings continued throughout the twentieth century, where Nessie grew from a pre-war urban legend--

  
Shane:  
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.  
Drop it, Ryan.

  
Ryan:  
\--into a cryptozoological marvel.

  
Shane:  
He dropped the shoe.

  
Ryan:  
Amateur cryptozoologists ran Sonar studies throughout the 20th century and claimed to have found evidence of a large mass underwater.  
These were usually dismissed as large fish or algae blooms.  
Robert Rines, an American lawyer, ran four different Sonar studies in Loch Ness.  
In his first two expeditions in the 1970s, he and a group of scientists gathered Sonar readings of a creature underwater that was between 20-30 feet long.  
More curious were the images the expedition gathered of a flipper moving through the water and large white objects that suggested that there were multiple monsters in the lake.

  
Shane:  
_Multiple_ Nessies?!  
You mean there could be more than one Loch Ness Monster?

  
Ryan:  
I mean, if you believe that there was one in the first place!  
Wait, do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster?  
Did I convince you before I even presented any evidence?  
Holy fuck, you believe in the Loch Ness Monster.

  
Shane:  
The Loch Ness Monster isn’t real.  
You didn’t convince me of shit.  
But you can try.

  
Ryan:  
Oh baby, just wait.

  
Shane:  
_Baby?_  
Don’t condescend to me.

  
Ryan:  
Can’t a guy call another guy “baby” without accusations that he’s being condescending to his friend?

  
Shane:  
No.  
Yes.  
Maybe.  
Shut up.  
God, you were so much easier to deal with when you were paralyzed by your latent homosexual insecurities and afraid to show affection.

  
Ryan:  
I’m back and braver than ever, baby!  
It’s Season 20, we survived Trump’s America, we’re talkin’ about Nessie.  
Life is good.

  
Shane:  
I really fucking dislike you.  
Like, so much.

  
Ryan:  
Sure.

  
Shane:  
(loud, aggravated sigh)

  
Ryan:  
(wheezing)  
Are we having a moment?

  
Shane:  
Fuck you, where’s my evidence?

.::.

They take off into the lake. Isla takes them around the places of the last known sightings of Nessie. Before Ryan and Shane even touched down in Scotland, they had tried to organize a tour with her that would take them to all the famous places where there had been hoaxes, or sightings, but Isla refused to even discuss it. “I’ve got better places,” she had said, her voice sonorous and sure through the phone. She refused to give them an email address.

Isla takes them to a little cove 15 minutes from where they launched. “My neighbors were fishing and saw Nessie here,” she says, pointing at an outcropping of rocks. There are, in fact, two old men sitting on the rocks in beach chairs with their fishing lines set. She waves at them and they raise their ciders in salute.

“What did they say Nessie looks like?” Shane demands with a fierce interest that surprises Ryan.

“Big and white, according to my neighbors. Flippers the size of my boat, they said. Saw her head peeking out of the water -- big black eyes. Soulful.”

“Were they drunk?” Ryan can’t help but ask, looking back behind them at the old men on the rocks.

“Aye, probably, but that doesn’t make them liars.”

“Be respectful,” says Shane, nudging him. “Where’s your open mind? I thought you wanted to see a plesiosaur.”

“Yeah, but--”

“Don’t you believe in souls, Ryan?” Isla asks and the shock of a question so personal from a near stranger shuts Ryan right up.

“Ryan’s a special boy,” says Shane. Isla snorts and guns the motor.

.::.

  
Ryan:  
The white objects Rines’ expedition found in 1972 and 1975 were interpreted as rocks to skeptics and plesiosaur-like creatures to believers.

  
Shane:  
_The dinosaur?!_

  
Ryan:  
Yeah, the dinosaur.  
British naturalist Peter Scott gave these creatures a name: _Nessiteras rhombopteryx_.

[Shane throws his plastic dinosaur at Ryan, who ducks, laughing.]

  
Shane:  
You son of a bitch, you set me up!

  
Ryan:  
(wheezing)

  
Shane:  
You gave me this plastic dinosaur, which I thought was a gift from the goodness of your heart, your heart which cherishes our friendship and wants me to be happy, and all this time you were setting me up to be a--a bit!

  
Ryan:  
I cherish our friendship!  
I also cherish humiliating you.

  
Shane:  
Oh my god, I’ve been holding the spoilers to this episode from the beginning!  
You set me up!  
Is this your evidence?

  
Ryan:  
What?  
A plastic dinosaur is not my evidence.  
Sonar readings are my evidence.  
Pictures are my evidence.  
Shut up and listen to me.

[Shane picks up a pencil and starts twirling it between his fingers. He looks caught between pissed and resigned. Ryan looks at him, then back at the open file folder in front of him. He looks so, so happy.]

  
Ryan:  
In 1987, another expedition, called Operation Deepscan, made sonar contact with a large moving object.  
Some people reasoned that these were large seals that had made it into the lake.  
Darrell Lowrance, who invented and donated the equipment for Operation Deepscan and examined the sonar readings, said:  
_“There's something here that we don't understand, and there's something here that's larger than a fish, maybe some species that hasn't been detected before.”_

  
Shane:  
Huh.

  
Ryan:  
Kind of compelling, right?  
I mean, the guy invented the equipment that they used.  
And he wasn’t exactly out there making up readings.  
Like that’s a pretty unequivocal statement, but he’s not out here telling people that he for sure found Nessie.

  
Shane:  
Yeah.  
What else do you have, Bergara?

.::.

Isla takes them from cove to cove -- here, another neighbor saw the ridge of a back while picnicking with her sweetheart, there Isla’s vicar saw a fin while he was performing an Easter baptism, further down a bunch of children were playing on the rocks when a rogue wave on a calm day came up and nearly snatched them from their nannies.

Shane seems fascinated by all this anecdotal evidence. But the longer they’re out there on the boat, the more trouble Ryan has believing Isla. Not that she is a liar, but that the people around her are mistaken somehow. None of this can really be real, can it? A big white monster living for centuries in a cold Scottish lake? Ryan knows the evidence, he explained it all to Shane in L.A. but now that he’s out here, well. It’s a really big lake.

God, he thinks, it’s the Bigfoot episode all over again, except that they’re in Scotland and Shane keeps bumping into him as they cut through the water. This time, Shane is the believer somehow and Ryan is the skeptic. This episode is going to be absurd. Their credibility is going to be blown.

For all that he’s gotten over most of his regular insecurities, Ryan has really never gotten over his neuroses about roleplaying on the show, about making the tone of the show consistent, about making the show good. Twenty seasons in -- forty total, with True Crime -- and he’s still worried.

He glances at Shane. Shane has aviators on and his orange life-jacket clashes horribly with his red flannel. He looks so incredibly serene as he looks out at the water that it calms Ryan down.

.::.

  
Ryan:  
In 2003, the BBC sponsored a search for Nessie using 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking that could pick up something as small as buoy.  
So it could find something as big as Nessie, right?

  
Shane:  
You’re going to drop another shoe.

  
Ryan:  
They didn’t find anything.  
They picked up all sorts of small animals but no Nessie.

  
Shane:  
Drop the shoe, Ryan.

  
Ryan:  
In 2008, in his fourth expedition, Rines declared that Nessie, or “ _Nessiteras rhombopteryx_ ”, had gone extinct.

  
Shane:  
Drop. The. Shoe.

  
Ryan:  
Rines believes that Nessie failed to adapt to global warming.

  
Shane:  
I’m--no.  
That’s not a shoe, that’s a live grenade.  
Global warming? Global warming killed Nessie?

  
Ryan:  
I mean, technically, global warming killed the dinosaurs the first time around too.

  
Shane:  
(wheezing)

  
Ryan:  
Rines believed that, because there hadn’t been any verifiable reported sightings of Nessie in several years and because his most recent sonar readings and those of the BBC’s expedition turned up nothing, Nessie no longer existed.

  
Shane:  
I’m a little verklempt.

  
Ryan:  
Yeah, according to Rines, Nessie is dead.

  
Shane:  
Long live Nessie.  
Well, she had a nice run.  
All thirteen centuries of her.

  
Ryan:  
Oh, we’re not done.  
In 2017, a vacationing doctor took a picture of what appears to be a fin rising out of the water.  
Some dismissed it as a wave.  
In fact, 2017 was a record year for Nessie sightings and every year since, people report sightings of her, though none have produced any other pictures.

  
Shane:  
Nessie lives!

.::.

“Here,” says Isla, killing the engine. They’re deep into the middle of the lake, surrounded by mountains. The dock from where they left isn’t visible even; the rocks where neighbors and vicars and children saw Nessie are barely pinpricks.

“Where are we?” Ryan asks.

“Middle of the lake,” says Isla. “The exact middle.”

“Why?” Ryan asks.

“You want to see Nessie, right?” Isla asks. “Here she is.”

The water is calm. The water is dark. The overcast sky has burned off into a pale blue and Shane has a slight sunburn on his nose and cheeks.

“Look,” says Isla, pointing out at the water.

Ryan looks out at the water. Shane shoves him over the side of the boat.

Ryan emerges several feet away from the boat, spitting water. Isla, Shane, and TJ are laughing their asses off.

“You motherfuckers,” he says. “It’s fucking freezing in here. I could have died.”

“The Loch Ness Monster isn’t real,” says Isla. “My village talks, but they’re full of guff.”

“You didn’t believe her, right?” asks Shane. He’s giggling.

“Shut the fuck up,” says Ryan, even though he sort of didn’t. He’s got to keep up appearances while TJ is filming, at the very least.

Shane laughs and waves him back at the boat. Ryan starts to paddle back to the boat. Jesus fuck, it’s cold. He thinks he read somewhere that if your head is the same temperature as the rest of your body, it all evens out. It’s probably bullshit but he ducks under the water anyway.

Something huge and white is floating under him. It has fins. He gasps and inhales a lung full of water.

.::.

  
Ryan:  
In 2018, a group of researchers ran a DNA survey on the lake.  
Their results were inconclusive.  
They found DNA of unknown origins but speculated that because Loch Ness is so big and the rise of global warming so rapid, algae in the lake had mutated into a new species.

  
Shane:  
That’s way fucking weirder than a dinosaur.

  
Ryan:  
Is it?  
You really think global warming causing mutant algae is weirder than a plesiosaur living for seven centuries and dying only because she failed to adapt to global warming?

  
Shane:  
I mean, humans have been around for 500,000 years and we’re adapting really badly to global warming.  
The electricity went out in my neighborhood last Sunday and the whole street was feral by Monday night.  
Children were screaming and breaking fire hydrants.  
Adults were playing baseball in the street.  
Grandparents getting high on the porch steps.  
Fuck, I love L.A.

  
Ryan:  
Wow, that was almost wholesome.

[T.J.: “Don’t talk about drug use or we’re going to have cut this entire bit and you’ll have to start over.”]

  
Shane:  
Sorry.  
I’m just saying, humans have been around for centuries and we’re killing ourselves by letting corporations run around unchecked.  
Nessie doesn’t deserve to die because humans are shitty.  
At least when I die from heatstroke, I’ll hear children laughing.  
Maybe Ryan will be at my bedside.  
Maybe the Try Guys will be there.

  
Ryan:  
Who says I want to watch my best friend die?  
You want me to watch you die?  
Fucked up, man.

  
Shane:  
I thought you were braver this season!  
You wouldn’t want to be with me in my dying days?  
You want me to die alone?  
You want _Keith_ to be the one holding my hand as I take my final breath?

  
Ryan:  
Well, not Keith.  
Can we get back to Nessie?  
I don’t like thinking about you dying.  
And anyway--

  
Shane:  
You have another shoe?

  
Ryan:  
My last shoe.  
You’re going to hate this.

  
Shane:  
Drop your last shoe.

.::.

“Holy fuck,” he says, coming up for air, choking on water. He thinks he might throw up. “Holy fuck, oh my god, holy shit.”

“What?” says Shane. He looks worried. “Are you okay? Come on, Ryan, you’re going to get sick.”

Ryan ducks underwater again. The huge white thing has big black eyes and it’s peeking up at him. Its body is so big that Ryan can’t make out the tale in the dark water. It’s white. Its face is the size of Ryan’s body. Its eyes look soulful. It...looks kind of shy as it watches Ryan. Like it’s waiting for Ryan to do something more than choke on water.

Ryan comes up for air again. “Oh my fucking god,” he says.

“Ryan, what the fuck?” Shane demands. Even Isla looks concerned. Ryan dives underwater, as deep as he can with the life jacket on him.

He wants to say something but he’ll drown if he opens his mouth. He reaches out to touch Nessie, to show her that he’s a friend who just wants to broadcast her existence to the entire world on his web series.

Nessie blinks her big black eyes at him, eyelids white and wrinkled. She blows a huge bubble at him that shoves him back several feet, and skitters away through the water, down where it’s darker. He can’t see her anymore.

Ryan comes up gasping for air. “Holy shit,” he says.

“Ryan, get in the fucking boat before you die of hypothermia,” says Shane. “Where the fuck did you go? What are you doing? I know you hate being made fun of but you don’t have to drown yourself to make a point.”

Ryan paddles over and allows Isla to drag him out of the water. “I saw her,” he says. “I saw Nessie.”

.::.

  
Ryan:  
Space-time anomaly.

  
Shane:  
NO.

  
Ryan:  
Yeah.

  
Shane:  
NO!

  
Ryan:  
(wheezing)

  
Shane:  
Do I want to know details?

  
Ryan:  
According to some theorists, Nessie is a plesiosaur who got caught in a space-time anomaly that tore her from her home in the Mesozoic era and landed her in Loch Ness, millions of years later.

  
Shane:  
I can’t go on, Ryan.  
This is the end of the show.  
You’ve told me some weird, fucked up, incredibly stupid, asinine, compelling, interesting, occasionally believable bullshit over the past 20 seasons of Supernatural but this might be the worst.

  
Ryan:  
I didn’t say I believe it.

  
Shane:  
You believe everything!

  
Ryan:  
I didn’t believe in Bigfoot or El Chupacabra!  
That was you.

  
Shane:  
I still contend that the dead goats we found in Texas were proof that something is out there that has it out for farm animals.

  
Ryan:  
We don’t have time to get into this argument again.

[TJ: “We really don’t.”]

  
Ryan:  
My point is--

  
Shane:  
Please give me a reason to live, Ryan.  
If this season of our esteemed show ends with a space-time anomaly, involving fucking dinosaurs, I don’t know what I’ll do.

.::.

“What’d she look like?” asks Isla, pulling out a shock blanket and tossing it at Shane. Shane rips it open and wraps it around Ryan.

“She was white,” says Ryan. He’s shaking from adrenaline or from being thrown into a cold lake. “She was huge. She blew a bubble at me.”

“All right,” says Isla. “We’ve had our fun. I’m taking you back.”

“I’m not lying,” Ryan insists as Isla turns the boat around and back to shore. “She looked shy.”

“Yeah,” says Shane. He wraps an arm around Ryan to warm him up, a move made redundant by the shock blanket. Or maybe he’s just trying to calm Ryan down while TJ films them.

Ryan feels a little hysterical in ways he hasn’t since their early seasons. When did his heart get hard, he wonders through the anxiety that is rising in his chest. When did possible proof of the unknown stop inspiring pure panic in him so that now, when he finally has proof of the unreal, he has a meltdown that’s greater than any he had in their early demon investigations? This rising hysteria is familiar to him but he hasn’t felt it in years. It’s comforting; it’s horrifying. He’s not shaking from adrenaline, he realizes; he’s shaking because he’s having a panic attack.

“I swear on my life,” he says. He’s aware that he is babbling. “I swear on _your_ life, Shane, I saw her. I almost touched her.”

“Cut the camera,” says Shane to TJ.

“No, don’t,” says Ryan. “Everyone has to know, she’s real. She’s real, I saw her. Not everyone was lying. Not everything was a hoax.”

“What did she really look like?” Shane asks.

“Like a fucking pleisiosaurus,” says Ryan. He feels like he’s choking.

Shane’s arm tightens around his shoulders. “Breathe,” he says.

“I can’t,” says Ryan. “She’s fucking real, holy shit. Shane, I can’t.”

“Breathe with me,” says Shane. “Come on, Ry. Inhale--” Ryan inhales “--exhale.” Ryan exhales. Shane puts his hand on Ryan’s back between his shoulder blades underneath the shock blanket.

They stay like this for the rest of the ride back, Shane directing Ryan to inhale, exhale, inhale again. When Isla secures the boat at the dock, she’s the first off the boat, dragging Ryan behind her and standing him up in the middle of the wood dock. “You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?” she says, studying him as he stands shakily and tries to hand the shock blanket back. She waves him off and asks again: “you’re telling us the truth?”

“I’m not a liar,” says Ryan.

“Get this man dry clothes and whiskey,” says Isla as Shane climbs onto the dock, TJ behind him looking wary.

“It was nice to meet you,” says Ryan as Shane hooks an arm around his shoulder.

“Aye,” says Isla. “Thanks for adding one more story.”

Shane guides him off the dock to their rental car. Ryan looks back. Isla stands on the dock with her arms crossed, looking out at the lake.

.::.

  
Ryan:  
My point is, people have come up with all sorts of excuses to find mythological creatures in their everyday life for centuries.  
Sonar readings. DNA scans. Photographs.  
Folklore passed along from person to person.  
The human spirit of exploration lives on when we try to find creatures like Nessie or Bigfoot or El Chupacabra.  
We want to believe that there’s still, I don’t know, the unknown in the world and that we can find it and touch it and prove it.  
Like, that’s our whole show.  
We’re just two guys trying to prove that there’s, I don’t fucking know, mystery or whatever in the world.  
At this point, this point in human history, where we’ve melted the ice caps, and we’re constantly at war and we have to live with the reality that a lot of us are not going to survive whatever happens to humanity next --  
at this point, you and I are trying to prove that the answers to these mysteries are still worth searching for.  
That these things are still worth trying to prove.  
That there’s still, fucking, I don’t know, magic in the world.

[Shane has a soft smile on his face as he looks at Ryan. Ryan doesn’t seem to notice, even as he talks to Shane.]

  
Ryan:  
So when people come up with shit like space-time anomalies and dinosaurs that lived millions of years alone in a lake and creatures that respond to Christianity and you and I try to prove conclusively that this shit does or does not exist?  
Fuck, man.  
That’s the reason to live.  
To keep looking.  
To keep finding.  
To keep proving this shit does exist or doesn’t.  
To keep living the tradition of exploration.  
That’s the reason to live.

  
Shane:  
Thanks, man.

  
Ryan:  
All right, moment over.  
Let’s go to fucking Scotland and prove that Nessie exists.

  
Shane:  
Or doesn’t.

  
Ryan:  
Or doesn’t.  
But she’s worth looking for.

  
Shane:  
Let’s go.

.::.

After a shower and a nap, Ryan is ready to brood in the pub next to their hotel. Shane does not afford Ryan the chance to be alone with his thoughts however; he intercepts Ryan on his way through the lobby and follows him next door.

The pub is almost empty, just a few other people sitting at the bar and laughing together. Ryan sits down in a chair at a two-person table while Shane goes to ask the bartender for god knows what. He stares blankly out the window. It’s a lake-front view. The sun is setting and the water is darker than it has been all day, even as the world settles into the magic hour.

There’s some indie rap over the PA system that Ryan doesn’t recognize playing in the background. He doesn’t usually go for noise, especially indie music, when he wants to brood, but it’s fine right now. He can’t stop looking at the lake.

Shane slides into the chair across from Ryan, blocking most of the window, and passes him an empty scotch glass. He’s got a full bottle of Macallan whiskey and another empty glass of his own. Ryan looks at the bottle and then at Shane.

“Did you buy that or did Buzzfeed?” asks Ryan.

“Please,” said Shane, with a snort. “If Buzzfeed bought this, I’d have to share when we get back.” He fills Ryan’s glass halfway and then his own. “Cheers.”

Ryan taps his glass against Shane’s and he drinks.

They’re silent for a bit, drinking. Ryan wants to work himself into a bad mood, but Shane keeps looking at him, expression inscrutable. Ryan is so exhausted that he can’t really find the energy to be mad at Shane or at science or at the world who is going to shit all over him when he says that he saw Nessie.

“You really saw her, huh?” says Shane finally, after an hour of Ryan looking at him and then at the window behind them. The sun has set and Ryan can’t see the lake anymore.

“Yeah,” says Ryan. “I did.” He drinks. “I’m not making shit up, Shane.”

“I didn’t think you were,” says Shane. “You’re not a liar. And only real proof of the supernatural would fuck you up this much.”

“It’s like I have Nessie PTSD,” says Ryan. “Post-traumatic Loch Ness Monster sighting disorder. I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“Yeah?”

“I believed in her--well, I don’t know if I believed in her particularly, not more than I believe in demons or ghosts or anything else we’ve ever investigated. Demons and ghosts made more sense than the Loch Ness Monster. But I mean, I believed that there are things that exist in the world that we don’t know or have proof of, but they were always there. Nessie may or may not have been one of those things that existed that we never had real proof of. But now that I have proof, now that I’ve experienced something that no one has ever reported -- I mean, she looked at me, Shane! I don’t know what to do.”

Ryan empties his glass and taps it against the table, a request he’s too tired to say out loud. Shane fills it again and sips his own glass.

“Forty seasons of Unsolved mysteries and my proof that the supernatural exists, that cryptozoologists aren’t completely full of shit, is the fucking Loch Ness Monster blowing bubbles at me, Shane. What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go from here?”

“I mean,” says Shane, “Nessie doesn’t prove that demons or ghosts exist. Nessie doesn’t prove that Bigfoot or the Yeti or the Jersey Devil exists. Nessie is just...Nessie.”

“But Nessie is solid proof that these things _could_ exist,” says Ryan. “Before it was almost like, I believed these things existed and I was always trying to find proof, but some part of me never expect to find anything. Twenty goddamn seasons and we never found anything until now. And you didn’t even see her, so I’m still going to look like a crazy asshole when this episode comes out. People are going to look at me having a panic attack on a boat in the middle of a lake and they’re going to write it off as every other panic attack I’ve ever had on this show.”

“The Boogaras will believe you,” says Shane.

“The Boogaras are going to woobify me,” Ryan says with a grimace. He sips.

“Think of the merch we could make though,” say Shane. He grins, sweeps a hand in the air. “ _Nessie Lives_.”

“ _Long live Nessie_.”

“ _The dinosaurs were real_.”

Ryan laughs.

“ _It turns out Shane was wrong this entire time_ ,” says Shane.

“ _I believe in Ryan Bergara_ ,” say Ryan.

“The spirit of exploration is alive and well in the twenty-first century,” says Shane. He’s smiling. “The spirit of exploration lives on in Ryan and Shane and all of our viewers, skeptics and believers. Also, Nessie is real and Ryan was right all along.”

“Too long for a shirt,” says Ryan, laughing.

“Yeah,” says Shane.

They fall silent, drinking. The song playing in the background tells Ryan that the world is wild and mysterious so he shouldn’t take it so seriously. Hard ask, Ryan thinks. But maybe he should try. Maybe he should just roll with the mysteries of the world and not panic when he’s faced with hard evidence that solves them. After all, Nessie is a dinosaur who lives in a lake and Ryan is a guy who only found her because his best friend shoved him over the side of a boat as a prank. That’s a pretty absurd way to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

“You want to get out of here?” asks Shane.

Ryan lets himself look at Shane, really look at him. He doesn’t look nervous having asked Ryan what is possibly the most loaded question of the night; he looks self-assured, calm. But that’s Shane all over, isn’t it? That’s not a part he plays. That’s who he is. Shane is calm while Ryan works himself into a panic, as they have done in every single episode since Shane joined the show. And now, away from the camera, Shane is calm while Ryan looks at him, figures out what he’s asking.

Ryan’s world has been flung off its axis already today. What Shane is asking is not any weirder than anything else that’s happened and not as unexpected as finding a lake monster.

Shane breaks into a smile when Ryan grins.

“Yeah,” says Ryan. “I do.”


End file.
